The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-10-15
USEFULNESS OF FARM LIFE
Exchange.

"Is that so?"
 "Yes, I have come away, and the farm which knew me would perhaps know me yet if it could get sight at me, but it can't.
 "I went out you know, by the ad- vice of a physician" Said he: You need outdoor exercise, and above all, sleep, as you can only find in the country away from the noise and heat of the city, with the great open windows and the cool and velvety breezcs floating through your room all night long, with perhaps an occa- sional night with the pattering rain upon the roof to lull you to sleep That's what the doctor said.
 "So 1 hired out to a farmer to work all summer. He said I was so white and pale that he couldn't give me anything but my board for my services, but if wanted to work for that might climb in behind the seat and ride out.
 ''So did. He had one mule and one horse and the mule baked every time we went down hill, and they both tried to run away on the level. he drove them with trace chain tied on white ash x-helve.
 "But we got there at last. don't want to tell you anything about the work to-day-I haven't time-but I feel as if l must say something about those long nights sleep.
 "The first night we got home late, but still the sun was only nicely down. The sun sets about two hours later out there than anywhere else ill the known world.
 "After supper the farmer spent one hour and half telling me about the flax crop on the back forty, and then he reckoned we better milk. There were twelve cows, and he said he would take six. He gave me the kick CTS, and it took me two hours, and it had been dark long time when finished. Then he had me pump up water for the next day. And it took forty minutes. Then I filled the woodbox, and split the kindling wood. And as it was big box it took thirty minutes. Then he told me about the oat crop, which took an hour. And when I went to bed it was growing light in the east.
 "The window in the room was a pane of glass nailed over an irregular hole in the boards, and could not be opened. 1 felt around in the dim light and finally got into bed. had just fallen asleep and had begun to dream was lying along the ridge pole ofa double bumped camel when the farmer pounded on the stairs with an old broomstick and said breakfast was ready. couldn't see as it was any lighter than when I went to bed. though the sky in the east was little redder.
 "l will pass over the day as it is painful to recall. Or rather the day and the last end of one night and the first end of another, for we were in the haytield sixteen hours.
 "And that evening after supper he said might throw the dirt out of a new cellar while I rested.
 "Then we milked and he gave me eight cows instead of six-all kickers. And one of them was a hooker, too. and slammed me through the corn crib.
 "I got to bed an hour sooner than the night before, because he said he was thinking some of getting up early the next morning.
 "And that night it rained, and I heard the pleasant batter of the rain on the roof that the old fraud of doctor spoke about. But it didn't Hull me to sleep, because it leaked down on me and got the bed clothes all wet and caught cold.
 "And when the farmer pounded on the stairs l got up and looked at my watch, and had been abed an hour and forty minutes and my clothes were wet and there was water in my shoes.
 "But it was good day and we worked at the hay again. We moved down what the farmer called a 'slather' of it. And that night after l had rested awhile on the cellar and milked the twelve cows-twelve kickers-and one of them thought was trying to kidnap her calf and chased me out of the yard-the farmer said it looked like rain again, and he reckoned we'd better go out and cock up that hay before bedtime.
 "And before we got to the field saw the morning star, and when I had got up twelve punches of hay, and the old hypocrite of a farmer four, heard lark. Then when had up twenty-four punches and the farmer six, it began to grow quite light.
 "When the farmer saw it he laid down on the hay and laughed for ten minutes. He said we had worked right through the night without knowing it.
 But I had known more about it than ho fhouuhf hod